Submitted by Sydney Frontz
Wednesday, Oct. 4
After our all region meet, I kept thinking to myself, "Sydney you have to do well in Disney." I didn't have my best performance tonight at Lexington, and I was very disappointed in myself. If I don't have my best race, I tend to beat myself up. Lately, this has been happening a lot. Oh well, I told myself it was another bad race, and soon I would get back into the groove of things.
It is hard to believe that Disney is here, and we leave tomorrow. My whole team has been very excited and anxious to leave. I am excited too because we get to go with the Chapin team. It will be a great opportunity to meet new people and spend time with them. After studying and homework, I finished packing my stuff for the trip, then went off to bed.
Thursday, Oct. 5
This morning, I woke up around 9:30 because I decided not to go to school. It was a very nice change to be able to sleep in instead of the usual getting up at 6:30. I am very excited because we leave at 1.
At 12:30, our team met at our school and put our luggage on the bus. Then we were off to Florida. With many pit stops along the way, we finally made it to the All Sports Hotel in Disney. When we got there, we walked around and saw many teams from all over. Coach then told us we had a long day tomorrow and that we should head off to bed.
Friday, Oct. 6
We woke up at 6:30 and met at the pool to go for a run. Chapin also ran with us. After our run, we reported back to our rooms to take showers and then eat breakfast. We were going to the parks all day today. Our team decided on going to MGM and Magic Kingdom. The Tower of Terror was my favorite, we rode it twice! It was also VERY hot today; I just wondered what tomorrow would be like since we run at 10:45.
Around 7, we arrived back at the hotel to eat dinner. I had this chicken pasta dinner that was very good! I had to carb up so I would run well tomorrow morning. After a team meeting and hanging out, we turned our lights out at 10.
Saturday, Oct. 7
I woke up this morning, very anxious and nervous. I hate when I do this. Our team went to breakfast together, and I ate half of a chocolate chip muffin and some frosted flakes. I couldn't eat it all, I was nervous. I tried not to think about the way I felt this morning, I knew it would only make me run worse.
I kept telling myself to relax. We arrived at the World Wide Sports Complex around 9. Then, I got extremely nervous. I saw runners from all over the nation. I tried to tune everything out by listening to my iPod. Around 10, I gathered the girls and we went to start our warm up. The girls and I went to the starting line at 10:35. We did some strides and waited for the start. The officials then went around and made us unroll our shorts and tuck our shirts in. I was getting very anxious; I just wanted to get this race over with. The official told us the directions and said "runners set;" at this point I had all kinds of stuff running through my head. I tried not to doubt myself. Then the gun blew. "Dang I've got to run now," I thought.
The girls at the start were aggressive and I got blocked in. Many girls were falling and then getting trampled. I was thankful I didn't trip and fall. The air was so hot and humid. Every time I took a breath, all I inhaled was very hot air. I was doing decent for the first two miles. Then it felt like I crashed and burned the last mile. I died. My whole body felt like it was shaking inside. I started to get light headed and then all I wanted to do was finish.
I crossed the finish line wobbling. It was hard to stand. I needed water. After a terrible race and describing how I felt, my coaches and my mom though I might be anemic. I felt horrible, I was so tired. It felt like all the energy had been sucked out of me and I didn't have any left.
We got back at the hotel around 12 and cleaned up. The team and I went to lunch and the parks. But, I didn't feel good so I stayed back and took a nap while the rest of the team went to Animal Kingdom. Around 5, my mom woke me up to go meet the team at Epcot. At 9, we watched fireworks then we got back to the hotel around 10:30. The girls and I packed our stuff since we were leaving the next morning. We stayed up late talking and eating junk food, and then finally went to bed around 1.
Sunday, Oct. 8
We got up at 6, and then left Disney at 7. On the way home we stopped at McDonalds for breakfast. Everyone fell asleep on the way home. This had been one of the best weekends ever, and I got to spend it with my favorite people in the world, the Irmo cross country team. I also want to say congrats to Chapin for an awesome win this weekend. Keep it up!